During the summer of 2017, Elder Matthew S. Holland — then president of Utah Valley University and now a General Authority Seventy — knocked on a door with a sign that read “chaplain” at Oxford University.

Behind the door was the Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal, an Anglican priest and theologian specializing in Christian church history at Oxford’s Pembroke College. Unbeknownst to either of them, that first meeting would bloom into a friendship beyond themselves and their faith.

On this episode of the Church News podcast, the first in a two-part series, Elder Holland and the Rev. Teal are joined by guest host Sheri Dew to discuss interfaith friendship and community building.

Join us next week: Oxford’s Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal — Part 2: The reverberations of interfaith friendships with President David W. Checketts and Sister Deborah L. Checketts, London England Mission leaders.

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Transcript:

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: Since that meeting, all that’s sort of gone on has brought me to a deeper love of Jesus Christ than I’ve ever had. And my friends and family spot that. They know there’s something more authentic, more honing, and I’m really grateful for that. And the friendship I’ve found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unparalleled. And that’s not to demean my own Anglican community at all. I’m still an Anglican partly because of the love that I’ve actually seen in ordinary people of the Church of England. But I must say that well, actually, I owe them the debt of honor to actually share, to share what I found, the pearl of great price, pearl of greatest price, because it’s about longing. I long for the day when the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox, the Methodist and Anglican and Protestant churches come to appreciate the tenderness, the glory, the kindness of the latter-day revelation, of the restored community.

1:12

Sarah Jane Weaver: This is Sarah Jane Weaver, executive editor of the Church News, welcoming you to the Church News podcast. We are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

During the summer of 2017, Elder Matthew S. Holland — a General Authority Seventy who was then serving as president of Utah Valley University — took a sabbatical to Oxford University. Amid the charm and character of English architecture, in a place where the educational tradition dates back to the late 11th century, he noticed the word “chaplain” written on an office door. Behind the door was Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal, a chaplain who became his friend.

This episode of the Church News podcast features Elder Holland and Dr. Rev. Teal talking about their friendship, bridge-building and working together. The interview, the first in a two-part podcast, is held on the campus of Oxford University and is hosted by Sister Sheri Dew, a former member of the Relief Society general presidency, and executive vice president and chief content officer of Deseret Management Corporation.

2:27

Sheri Dew: It is a surreal experience to be sitting here with the two of you. We’ve heard in part some of the story about how you first became acquainted. But, Elder Holland, I wonder if you would start by telling about the experience when you were here on sabbatical and what happened. And then of course, Rev. Teal, we’re going to want to hear your reaction and your reflection about what occurred.

2:49

Elder Matthew S. Holland: Sure. Well, I was taking a much-needed break from my university duties and thought I had sort of died and gone to heaven to be posted here at Oxford with time to read and think and reflect and write. And I hadn’t been here very long. I was making my way one day to the dining hall and noticed a door, and it said “chaplin.” It was labeled in some fashion that way. And I thought, “Well, here’s a man of God, I presume, on this campus.” And I was very intrigued by that, because I had been at a state university, where you have to be very, very careful about the way you mix the religious life and the academic life. We’d tried to do some things at Utah Valley University. We had started a reflection center, a place for prayer and meditation, which was — even that was a little testing of the boundaries in the state system. So I’d always been interested, and it was so refreshing to see an official religious office on a university campus.

So I took my chances and knocked on the door. And on the first knock, he was there and opened the door and took in a stranger. He couldn’t have been more gracious, and I simply introduced myself, explained who I was. And I really was just intending to make an acquaintance and say, “Hello,” and say, “I’ll be here for the summer.” And he insisted that I sit down and took more interest in me than I was expecting. And I was quite taken with that. And I think we ended up speaking at some length, even that first visit, 20 or 30 minutes, and then continued to run into each other.

One of the beautiful things about the Oxford environment is that they foster a lot of discussion between disciplines and perspectives. And it’s built into the design of the place, how you eat, how you associate, and so we just kept running into each other in various situations, and I felt a sort of gravitational pull. He can speak for himself, but I certainly felt that, and that’s how it began.

4:58

Sheri Dew: And this — the year was —

Elder Matthew S. Holland: 2017.

Sheri Dew: 2017.

Elder Matthew S. Holland: Yeah.

5:04

Sheri Dew: So Rev. Dr. Teal, what’s your reflection about that first meeting?

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: Somebody knocked on the door, and it was nice to see somebody. And so we had a bit of a chat, and there was an immediate rapport. It must be said we were interested in each other. There was a sense of mutual respect and interest and weight. And I thought, “Ooh, that is great. I’ve got to know somebody who’s going to be around for the summer, and he’s on sabbatical.” And I remember, at one point, you said you were a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And in the next breath, I think you said you’d like me to meet your dad. And I immediately and wrongly thought, “Oh, perhaps his father is a bit suspect about him being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so I can put his mind at ease.” And that wasn’t necessary to say. But then I think we went — I don’t know whether you were there — we went down to a meeting in London with the Yazidis community. I don’t know whether you were part of it.

Elder Matthew S. Holland: I wasn’t at that part.

Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal and Elder Matthew Holland, General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, laugh during an interview at Pembroke College in Oxford on Thursday, July 6, 2023.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

5:57

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: That’s when I met your parents first. And it was lovely. And then afterwards, we thought about the possibility of doing something together here in Oxford. And we invited the former archbishop of Canterbury, the Metropolitan archbishop of the Orthodox community, the senior lay Roman Catholic, Elder Holland Sr. and the former most senior scholar of the Methodist Church.

And we had a sort of meeting together called “Inspiring Service,” looking at trying to engage with students of all faiths, or all interested students, encouraging them to actually be open to their real purpose, a sense of vocation in its broadest sense; where are you going to go which will actually bring the most good, have the most impact on sentimentally, transform your world and also fulfill you. And so that was how we looked at trying to inspire a sense of service, because one of the things of Oxford is it’s very difficult to get in. And with that can come some sense of superiority. And what we wanted to do was to encourage people to find the grace of serving. And I think that was a really important meeting.

As part of that, we had a meal afterwards, a banquet, where you have the great and the good of the city and the political world and the university. But we also opened the doors to people who lived on our streets, made available the showers and got some clothes so that people wouldn’t feel embarrassed. And I sat with them in that great hall. The wine was served, but obviously not to the Latter-day Saint community. And I felt it was really important to sit there and not to drink. It was almost as if that was my first real awareness of the power of the Word of Wisdom.

Simply exercising your agency not to reach out and take for yourself what you can, it can be an act of grace if you’re sitting with people for whom that would be a tremendous temptation. And, afterwards — well, because I have promised to keep the Word of Wisdom. That is, it’s not just about keeping promises, although that is the most important thing; if you make a promise, you keep it. It’s the nearest thing to a covenant, and I’m grateful for this friendship, which has led me to an awareness that actually what we do in our worldly life has to be inviting other people to grace and to use their agency properly. So that was a big turning point for me, our friendship and everything that followed out from that.

8:41

Sheri Dew: Prior to the connection where you got acquainted, and then that led to some of the things that you just described, Reverend, what was your association with or awareness of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? And when you start talking about the Word of Wisdom, when did that come into play? At what point?

9:00

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: Beforehand, my only connection, really, with the Church was that a friend of mine when I was an undergraduate got baptized. I went to his baptism in Birmingham. And he was a really nice man. And I remember thinking, “Gosh, these people are really gracious. They’re really kind and welcoming,” and there was no defensiveness at all. But after that, of course, you know, life moves fast. And I didn’t really have a connection with the Church, again, until Matt, who knocked on the door. And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

After the Inspiring Service single, I was invited over to Utah several times and then was going to do my sabbatical over at Brigham Young University. The first Sunday of which I burnt my feet, and so that was a big — on one level a ridiculous thing, but on the other level, I think it probably achieved more than me sitting at a library, trying to write a book about, you know, what I thought I wanted to write about. And before I went over to BYU, you have to sign an honor code. And I thought, “Well, I will sign this and make this promise in the presence of my ward in Oxford.” I say “my ward”; clearly, it’s not my word, but I go to — I look after a convent, and I do a song Mass for them at first thing on a Sunday morning. And then there’s even song in here at the evening for this chaplain here.

But in the middle, I go to the 1st Ward, the Oxford [1st] Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I started to do that after Inspiring Service, and I’ve been doing it for years now, most Sundays. So I thought, “It’s the nearest thing to a covenant with the Church that I can make.” Because clearly, as an Anglican priest in holy orders, I can’t be rebaptized. And I don’t think, until I can do no other, I think I’ve got to sort of tread this path. But I can make a public covenant and a public promise, which was the BYU Honor Code. But looking at that, I thought, “Well, this is based on the Word of Wisdom, plus all the sartorial elegance of shaving.” And so I made that promise then and have kept it since, because I just think it’s really important.

8:17

If you make a promise, you keep that promise. And if that’s the nearest thing to a covenant with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my friends, which I love — I can read and do read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price daily — but this is a more important, public thing, so I don’t want to break that. In a funny sort of way, I was never, it was never my besetting sin, as we say in the Western Church. Alcohol didn’t really have a hold on me. I didn’t smoke. But it strikes me as really important to recognize that, yes, I will not drink of the wine until the kingdom. I will not drink alcohol again until kingdom comes, because I think it’s really important to sort of have that constant fasting, really, as a nonmember of the Church.

Because it’s about longing. I long for the day when the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox, the Methodist and Anglican and Protestant churches come to appreciate the tenderness, the glory, the kindness of the latter-day revelation, of the restored community. And Sunday by Sunday, seeing how there is this wonderful access, really, between authority of the Apostles and the Prophet and scripture and the rules of the Church. And there’s this wonderful, horizontal access too, where people have personal revelation, and we come and share things with great emotion. And that’s a really inspiring place to be.

Last Sunday, we were blessed to have Elder [Gerrit W.] Gong with us at Oxford; he just called in, which caused a great deal of excitement, as you might imagine. And it was just in that fast and testimony meeting, here, it was a sort of — to understand as an outsider what the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, it just struck me, “Of course; it’s a theological sociology. It’s about the society, the nature of the redeemed, the restored Church, where you have both a tremendous respect and embrace of people.”

It moves me to tears when we have some people who come and speak, and they perhaps have got very little in the way of the world. They perhaps have got mental or physical handicap, they spend a week being told what to do by other people, and at fast and testimony meeting, they can speak and find themselves listened to by the people of God. I find that so — it breaks my heart because of its beauty. And you see these are the people who will reach out and be patient and be understanding, and I want the rest of the churches to see and to know that.

14:08

Sheri Dew: That’s a beautiful reflection. Elder Holland, now, you have many friends of other faiths.

Elder Matthew S. Holland: Yes.

Pembroke College in Oxford on Thursday, July 6, 2023.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Sheri Dew: And Rev. Teal, you do as well. What do you think it was that sparked this friendship in a — perhaps a unique way? And then, part two of the question, if I may, because it may bleed together, have you learned or are you learning things from this friendship that feel distinctive and feel unique?

14:33

Elder Matthew S. Holland: Sure. Let me start by using something of a more earthly angle to your question. You’ve heard Rev. Teal the pastor, the theologian, here, but he mentioned something about the wit and the humor that we enjoy. One of our favorite family stories now is he makes reference to when he came to Provo and had this very unfortunate accident with his feet that got burned, and it turned out to be very serious. It actually ended up cutting short his stay so that he could get full and proper care for it. And there was a moment there where this was a very serious situation.

Not long after that, he was invited to my sister’s home. This was now a growing family relationship we have — my father, my sister, me — for Sunday dinner. And the choice of meat that night, that my brother-in-law is famous for preparing us, are burnt ends. And that’s what was served. And of course, it was Andrew who quickly pointed out, as he pointed to his feet, about, “Was I the inspiration for the choice of food that night?” as he pointed to his own burnt ends. And we still laugh. That’s just the kind of the self-deprecation, the wit, the humor that I think has bonded us, but of course, it’s something much more than that.

The scriptures speak of a “familiar spirit” (2 Nephi 26:16). I felt a familiar spirit from the moment I sat down in that chair and looked across at Andrew and we started to talk. And when I say he took an interest in me more than I was expecting, he was as he is with everybody. And he truly is, from the royals of the earth to the servants of the world, he takes a personal and direct interest in people. But it wasn’t just that he took an interest in me personally; he was genuinely curious about theology. Even just the brief moment that we somehow got talking about the Book of Mormon, I think on our very first conversation, he was — there was something theologically that linked us. There was something in terms of our just personal friendship that linked us. And it felt like something that was not new.

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: Absolutely.

16:49

Elder Matthew S. Holland: And it’s just built from there and, as I said, spread to friends of friends and grown every day. One of the things that has been wonderful to share with my family who’s here with us today, actually, is that my children love Andrew. They came home from that first dinner saying, “Dad, we’d like to spend more time with him.” And for my children, for myself, even to see such faith, such devotion, such individual agency and great use of that agency, in and across another tradition, he’s just such an example par excellence of that.

It’s opened up my world even more so to the need to have friendships across all traditions and all faiths, especially at the time of the world that we live in today. I think there’s a need for people of faith, people who still, as we see, the kind of embers of a Christian civilization really fading away. It’s more important than ever to unite with people of genuine and deep theistic faith and come together to talk and to unite, to worship, to disagree when we disagree, but to do so with love and understanding. And I’ve felt an immediate rapport and a commitment to do that kind of thing in Andrew.

18:13

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: It makes me think when we met and then certainly when I met your dad and your mom, and there was a moment outside when they came to speak at the university church here in the university. And I can remember the moment palpably. This is not like meeting somebody for the first time. It’s like a wonderful meeting again. Now that sounds spooky or ridiculous. And I make no claim about, you know, personal revelation or anything else, but I just knew that in a sense, just as the Lord, before He formed us in the womb, He knew us (see Jeremiah 1:5). Before we were formed in the womb, we knew each other.

I think that’s what gives friendship that real sense of spark and unpredictability, because in a sense, we are rooted in our Heavenly Father’s eternal love. And we have agreed, and sometimes we wish we didn’t really agree to this, but come into this mortal world to bring His love and His power back to people who have smeared it or lost it or have through pain or through what life has done to them lost it. And I find that there was a moment, there’s another person of blessed memory, Ann Madsen. We met each other, and we used to ring each other once a week. There was that similar sense in which, “This isn’t a new friendship. This is picking up something mystical and eternal.”

So who am I? It makes you ask questions about our own identity, and answered perhaps most simply but most profoundly in songs like “I Am a Child of God.” Simple. We don’t need to have to know the temperature of hell or the furniture of heaven. But we do need to know that. And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve loved about our friendships and also about seeing we have missionaries here in Oxford, and they come in here — they were here this week, playing the piano — that mission that they’ve got, that they can find on the England London Mission, the energy and the identity of who they are. And it’s Dave Checketts and Deborah Checketts when they were here as president of that mission.

I’ve been to two, I think, two reunions in Utah, where you can see how that experience of discovering friendship with people in a different place, sometimes in a different language — your son’s going to go to New Zealand, your daughter went to Australia — I know that it’s not quite a different language, but it’s not quite English either. There’s that sense in which you find that there is something deep and absolutely of infinite worth in another person. And I think that’s what friendship is like; this moment of blossoming that shows, actually, it’s not just you, it’s not just your parents or your children or our friends, but the whole world. We are all really deeply united. And I think that’s helped me to understand why the Church spends such a great deal of money and energy doing ancestry research.

Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal and Elder Matthew Holland talk in the garden at Pembroke College in Oxford on Thursday, July 6, 2023.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

21:21

Elder Matthew S. Holland: That’s right. That’s right. It’s already been remarked, but I will add there was — it was more than just a passing comment when I said, “You need to meet my father.” There was something about that initial conversation, where I just sensed something needed to happen here, that Andrew Teal, the great Oxford don and theologian, needed to meet Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and that there would be purpose.

I knew they would enjoy each other. I knew they would like each other. But I felt there was some greater purpose in that. And as it was, that was the next great development, I think, in the relationship because, very shortly after this, I came home and I went on a mission to North Carolina. I wasn’t in a position to correspond and keep up a very regular level of activity, being so busy with a mission. But that’s when Andrew and my father really connected and did some very important things here and then over there, and it felt like, again, there was an important and specific purpose for that to have. That was a feeling that came to me in that very first conversation.

22:29

Sheri Dew: And Rev. Teal, building on that. What was your experience when you met Elder Jeffrey R. Holland?

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: I think, as I said, it was almost as if this was meeting somebody I’d known all my being.

Sheri Dew: It was a reunion.

Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: It was a reunion, yeah.

Sheri Dew: Is that fair to say?

22:45

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: Oh, absolutely fair to say. And crazy, from a humanist perspective, to say. I’d never met him before in my life. But there is a real sense in which, actually, the respect with which I hold him and his family, and the love, it’s not just respect as a sort of distant thing. This is no trifling matter but has come to be what I believe to be my very life, that my purpose while I’m here is to try to do by all means, to bring together, to reconcile the people of God. And this has fed it. This has been like the banquet of life, which has given me that purpose. And I will keep on searching for how to do that, however it works out. And I won’t give up on that, just as I can’t give up on the promises I made that day in Ward.

So yes, that friendship is not simply something nice and occasional, but it reaches deep down into the very depths of who we are, so that we know that it is our purpose, our duty and our joy at all times and all places to build this relationship of love and trust and understanding and adventure between denominations and faith traditions that have historically been at each other’s throat and antagonistic. It’s really good that we went to see the convent where I was, and it’s nice to know that in fact, what I’ve been talking to the sisters has really sunk in, when the Reverend Mother was talking about how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been a persecuted community, and how that gives to the Church a commitment to and a heart for persecuted communities today.

I’m not just talking about people like the Yazidis community or whomever, but actually people of faith. I’m not saying people of faith are a persecuted community now, but there is a sense in which people of faith are perhaps tolerated rather than understood. And I think it’s really important to try to do all that I can to actually help people to see that the ridicule, the caricature, the writing off of people of whatever faith is just not on our agenda and it’s evil. And actually, it is a thing which distorts the goodness that we can see in other people. So it’s all connected. And we’re really glad that the Reverend Mother has picked that up, that actually this is about us being agents of reconciliation. And she talked about that today, didn’t she.

25:25

Elder Matthew S. Holland: I would just say even what we’re doing right here is in some ways an act of friendship. I didn’t show up today because I heard there was some interview. I was coming —

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: For lunch. You came for lunch.

Elder Matthew S. Holland: Yeah, I came for lunch. I came for lunch. I just was going to be in England with my family on vacation. The one thing my children wanted to do was to come back to Oxford and see it and some old friends. And so we rang Andrew, and at the same time, another friend — Dave Checketts — was reaching out to me to say that he was going to be in Oxford and seeing Andrew, and so we just all united. This just happened to come along as we were here.

And so I think this is in many ways a testimony not that you don’t necessarily look for the — grand things have seemed to come from this, but it didn’t start with a grand vision. It just started with people who want to be kind to each other and learn from one another and —

Sheri Dew: And understand each other.

Elder Matthew S. Holland: And understand each other, break down barriers and reach across the aisle and do things that are getting harder and harder to do in the world today. But therefore, we need them more and more. And so I just see today as a celebration of doing that.

26:43 

Sheri Dew: Beautiful, thank you. We’re in both of your debt.

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: It’s a wonderful coincidence.

Sheri Dew: It’s a wonderful coincidence. And it’s just — think about all the good that can be done by just the simple “Let’s just understand each other. Let’s talk with each other and build each other as people of God.”

Elder Matthew S. Holland: That’s true.

Sheri Dew: It’s a beautiful thing. There’s so much power, and I feel like what you’ve been describing is power.

27:08

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal: Since that meeting, all that’s sort of gone on has brought me to a deeper love of Jesus Christ than I’ve ever had. And my friends and family spot that. They know there’s something more authentic, more honing, yet to be revealed. That’s — and I’m really grateful for that, because the friendship I’ve found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unparalleled. And that’s not to demean my own Anglican community at all. Why, I’m still an Anglican partly because of the love that I’ve actually seen in ordinary people of the Church of England. But I must say that well, actually, I owe them the debt of honor to actually share, to share what I found, the pearl of great price, pearl of greatest price.

27:53

Elder Matthew S. Holland: And it goes both ways, I’ll just add, which is that even as you say that, Andrew, I can’t go a week without someone who talks of reading something you’ve written, seen an interview that you’ve done, where you’ve talked about your faith, and without insisting that you join our community or communion, that they are lifted in their faith of Jesus Christ. They’re lifted in their Christlike commitments because of what you’ve said and you’ve offered to us as you’ve come forward in this relationship. So it’s very much a symbiotic relationship leading, I think, all of us to higher ground than we were on before.

Reverend Dr. Andrew Teal and Elder Matthew Holland, General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, laugh during an interview at Pembroke College in Oxford on Thursday, July 6, 2023.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

28:33

Sarah Jane Weaver: Please join us next time as we continue a Church News podcast conversation with Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal. In episode two of the Church News podcast, Rev. Teal will be joined by David and Deborah Checketts, who got to know him while serving as mission leaders of the England London Mission from 2018 to 2021.

29:04

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